


You Know Nothing About Cooking, Jon Snow

by chai_lattes



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Chopped AU, F/M, Fluff, Tumblr Prompt, i love these two overly competitive douchebags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-09
Updated: 2016-08-09
Packaged: 2018-08-07 14:32:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7718515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chai_lattes/pseuds/chai_lattes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It should be simple, Jon knows he's the best chef in the North, it should be easy for him to breeze right through this round of Chopped, that is, if that crazy redheaded chef didn't have it out for him.<br/>--<br/>aka this is a jongritte chopped au. because what more could you ask for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Know Nothing About Cooking, Jon Snow

**Author's Note:**

> why did i write this. i'm beyond ridiculous. Anyways, the chopped AU you never knew you wanted. (also i know i know i should be working on Right Place/Right Time but this has been in my WIPs forever so yeah)

Jon would have gotten the ingredients on the plate faster if that redheaded chef hadn’t shoved him on her way to the oven.  
He grabbed his tray of stuffed peppers and looked up, only to lock eyes with a freckled, blue eyed chef, the light in her eyes turned from wild to absolutely crazy, and it took a minute for him to realize that she was looking over his shoulder. The other ovens were already in use, and there was only one remaining... and 10 minutes left. Immediately, almost as if they could read each other's minds, they grabbed their dishes and started a mad dash for the last oven. Jon was closer, and was so sure he was going to reach it first, but that was before she put on a burst of speed and shoved Jon out of the way, skidding to a halt in front of the oven and putting her tray inside.   
Jon’s life flashed before his eyes as his grip on the tray teetered and one paella-stuffed pepper flew into the air in a tragic arc. In what felt like slow motion, he reached out and barely snagged it by the tip. He sighed, relieved. If he lost an entire pepper, he wouldn’t have enough to plate, and he couldn’t afford to go home in the appetizer round.  
“Chefs! You have 10 minutes left!” The announcer (some guy named Renly Baratheon who kept making too many bad jokes to the camera and distracting them) said, and Jon took a steadying breath. Everything else was ready, he just needed to put the peppers in the oven, he had plenty of time, he could make it.  
By the oven, the girl who pushed him was staring intently whatever she was cooking. It was kind of cute, actually. She was crouching to be at eye level with the oven and watching so focused that her tongue was poking out from between her lips. Her red hair was held back by a braid, similar in shade to his sister’s, but that’s where the resemblance ended.   
The timer on the oven above her dinged, and another chef, a girl with hair so pale blonde it looked silver, hurried in to grab a tray of the crab claws they’d been given. Jon immediately jumped up and shut his peppers inside, leaning over the girl staring at her dish.  
“It’s not gonna cook faster with you staring at it, you know.” He said, and the girl looked up.   
“How do you know that, pretty boy?” She asked, and he was surprised to hear that her northern accent was even stronger than his own.   
“I’m not a pretty boy.” He said defensively, and she raised a single eyebrow (a talent Jon never learned how to master).  
“Would you rather be ugly then, pretty boy?”  
“It’s Jon. Jon Snow.” He said, half to introduce herself, and half to get her to stop calling him pretty boy.   
“Ygritte.” She said simply, not giving him a last name or any indication she’d stop calling him pretty boy. “I hope you don’t fail this round, pretty boy. I look forward to harassing you in the next round until I inevitably crush you in the dust.”  
“You can try.” He shot back as she took a plate of steaming spring rolls from the oven and darted back to her station. He was fuming now. Coming to Chopped was a big risk for him to begin with, he and Robb had just taken over the family restaurant, and they flipped a coin to decide who’d be competing. Of course he wanted to win this, but it was still some of the best chefs in all of Westeros he was going up against, but now he knew that even if he couldn’t win, he at least had to beat Ygritte.  
He pulled his peppers out of the oven as soon as Renly Baratheon announced that there were two minutes on the clock. Immediately he got to plating, thankful that his appetizer was decidedly non-fussy. All he had to do was put the pepper on the plate and add some of the sauce. When Renly started counting down the last 60 seconds (which was just totally unnecessary), he figured he might as well add a streak of the sauce to the plate as decoration.  
“Time up! Chefs, step away from your plates!” Jon backed up, finally having the time and free hands to tuck away the stray black curls that escaped from his ponytail. Ygritte had just barely set down her food and looked incredibly frazzled, but her food...shit, her food looked incredible.  
The four chefs grabbed their plates and proceeded to the judges table. For the first time, Jon really got a good look at the competition. There was Ygritte of course, and the blonde girl he’d seen using the oven before him. The last competitor was a man, shorter than Jon, with startling blue eyes and even more startling food. It looked like he was just serving slabs of raw meat.  
“Alright chefs, time to face the judges. Chef Bolton, you’re up first!”  
The blue eyed boy passed his plates out to the judges and met their gazes confidently, which he probably shouldn’t have, because when Judge Martell put a fork into his dish, it started bleeding.  
The blonde girl - Targaryen - was next, and while the judges all agreed that it was hard to taste all the flavors, she was probably safe because at least it wasn’t raw meat. When all the judges sang praises of Ygritte’s dish, she shot Jon an arrogant smirk.  
“Chef Snow, can you tell the judges what you’ve prepared today?” Renly asked, flashing his TV-ready smile to the camera. Jon felt completely frozen to the spot, his hands shook and his mouth was dry. “Chef Snow?”  
“Sorry,” He swallowed, forcing himself to calm his nerves. “So, what I have for you today is paella rice and ground chicken stuffed red peppers with an apple cider vinaigrette and a risotto spread.”  
He could hear his heart pounding in his ears as the judges each took a bite of their servings. To his surprise, Ygritte quickly reached out and squeezed his hand reassuringly, but her face remained a cool, competitive mask.  
“Chef Snow, stuffed pepper is a very, very common dish. Your presentation is very simple,” Judge Melissandre finally spoke up. “But this is truly amazing.”  
“I have to agree with Melisandre,” Doran Martell echoed. “The flavor is very rich, and I can really taste all the ingredients.”  
“However it was rather dry. And the decoration of the sauce just looks pathetic.” Olenna Tyrell added, and to his dismay, the rest of the judges nodded in agreement.  
They were then dismissed, walking down a narrow hallway to a waiting area, where they were told to sit and wait for fifteen minutes while the judges decided who to chop.   
“You know nothing about cooking, Jon Snow.” Ygritte turned around to laugh at him as soon as the door had closed. “You can’t put chicken and rice in the oven and not expect it to be dry.”  
“Oh so you’re a culinary genius, huh? I’ll crush you next round.” He spat, infuriated by her perpetual smirk.  
“Now it’s you who’s getting cocky, pretty boy! I’d watch your back if I were you.”  
“What are you going to do, burn all my food? You’ll get disqualified if you try.”  
“If they catch me.” She winked and blew a kiss in his direction. He was just about to fire back another threat when the blonde girl stepped in between them, changing the topic to try and diffuse the tension.  
“So, where’s everyone from?” She asked, smiling, but Jon could see the steel in her gaze. “I’ve got a restaurant in Mereen right now, but I grew up in the Dragonstone.”  
“Up north, from Winterfell.” Jon said, ignoring the faces Ygritte was making at him over chef Targaryen’s shoulder.   
“You think that’s north, pretty boy?” He saw chef Targaryen’s face fall as her attempt to stop their fighting failed. “I don’t think you’ll even know the place I’m from.”  
“Try me. I used to work at Castle Black, there’s not much further than the Wall.”  
“The Fist.” She said proudly. “Ever been north of the Wall, pretty boy?”  
He considered lying for a minute, but figured it would just make him seem more stupid in the long run, so he shook his head.  
He was saved another argument by Renly Baratheon’s perpetually cheerful face in the doorway, ushering them back into the showroom. No one was surprised to see Ramsay Bolton’s slab of raw meat on the chopping block.   
The surprise came in the baskets when they had to use swordfish, peanut butter, and sour gummy worms.   
To his annoyance, Ygritte seemed to get an idea immediately and darted off to the pantry, returning with cabbage, carrots, and rice. Jon still had no fucking idea what he was doing, but no way in hell was he going to let Ygritte see that.   
Thinking quickly, he decided on just searing the swordfish and having a sweet and sour peanut sauce. He walked purposefully to the pantry, “accidentally” shoving Ygritte with his shoulder as he passed her, causing her to spill some of her batter.   
When you’re watching Chopped on TV you hear the dramatic music playing and the camera cuts at perfect times, but it’s too quiet in the kitchen. Robb always had his music on in their restaurant kitchen, and the two of them learned to cook in the constant chaos of the Stark household. Now the only sound was the hissing of the swordfish in the pan, Renly Baratheon loudly critiquing Chef Targaryen’s cooking techniques to the camera, and Ygritte’s blender.   
“You have five minutes remaining!”  
Shit. Jon turned the heat down and pulled the pan off the stove, but as soon as he turned around, he caught Ygritte at his station, clutching a salt shaker.  
She stared, wide eyed like a deer in the headlights, only when she’d darted away to her cooking did he realize that she’s sabotaged his peanut sauce.  
“You bitch!” He shouted across the table, forgetting he was on live TV. That’s just great. He thought, Dad’s really going to be proud of me now.  
There was no time for him to scrap the peanut sauce. That evil woman mixed it too, so there was no way for him to tell how much she’d put in. Thinking quickly, he added more peanut butter to the mixture and a dash of honey, hopefully that would cut the salt.  
A bright flash and a scream out of the corner of his eye caught his attention, but unfortunately it wasn’t Ygritte’s dish that went up in flames, but Daenerys Targaryen’s. With two minutes left, too.   
He shook his head and stirred his peanut sauce, it was a little thicker than before, but it would have to do. He put the fish on the three plates and arranged the greens around it. The peanut sauce was drizzled on top, and this time he remembered not to try and artfully smear it around on his plate. Back home at Direwolf, it was always Sansa who made the dishes look nice. Robb and Jon just cooked them. Arya just ate them.   
“Are you ready?” Renly asked cheerfully, “Because you have to be! Let’s see what you’ve prepared for us!”  
Jon would have liked nothing more than to make Renly Baratheon compete and see how well he could do for all of this judgement he was passing off. He didn’t even get to eat the food, but he still turned up his nose at Daenerys’ charred fish. Ygritte made a beautiful stir fry, but his heart swelled with malicious glee when they pointed out that her noodles were rushed and undercooked. Finally, Renly Baratheon’s slightly terrifying grin fixed itself on Jon, and he took that as his cue to proceed to the front of the table.  
He watched anxiously as Olenna Tyrell scraped off some of the peanut sauce with her spoon to taste it, debating whether to tell them that Ygritte had ruined it.  
“Chef Snow,” She asked at last. “Why do you want to win Chopped?”  
“My brother, half brother.” He admitted. “We own a restaurant together, and he works his ass off, I’d be using the money to let him and his boyfriend go on vacation. Even though his boyfriend is a douchebag.”  
“That’s very sweet.” Melissandre smiled, having finished her portion of the swordfish. “And I have to say, this was very good fish.”  
“The sauce,” Olenna started, and Jon prepared for the worst, “Was very good, the texture was nice, and I love how you played with the sweet, sour, and the right amount of salt.”  
Oh, Ygritte was furious now.  
The waiting room was filled with tense silence now, not even Daenerys wanted to break the ice this time. Jon knew it would come down between him and Ygritte in the final round. He could beat her. He had to beat her, even if he had to play dirty. He would burn the entire kitchen to the ground, if he had to.   
“Contestants? The judges have reached a decision.” Renly said, proving once again that he had the best or worst timing in the world. They stood up and filed into a line behind Renly, Daenerys had a guarded look in her violet eyes and had her chin tilted into the air, proud and defensive. Ygritte stood behind him, stepping on his heels and pulling his hair down the entire hallway.  
Each of the judges wore a predatory grin when they walked in. This time, it could be any of them who got disqualified. Though Jon figured it was between Daenerys and Ygritte.   
“Chefs, each of you prepared an impressive meal with this basket, but one of you went up in flames.” Seven hells, was this guy for real? Jon thought as Renly Baratheon opened the silver lid of the chopping block with a flourish. “Chef Targaryen, I’m sorry, you’re going home.”  
Daenerys felt a twinge of sympathy for her, but she nodded gracefully and thanked the judges before walking through the hallway they’d just entered.  
“Chef Snow, Chef Wild, congratulations. You’ve made it to the dessert round.”  
Jon stole a look over at Ygritte, who was smirking right back at Renly, but Jon could see that she was probably just as nervous as he felt.   
Desserts were not Jon’s specialty. Usually Robb handled desserts at their restaurant, but his sister Sansa was the real pastry queen, but he and Robb had been baking her lemon cakes for her birthday for years, so when he saw the candied lemon peel, he already had his idea. Lemon cake he could bake blindfolded. But the can of pasta sauce and the garlic salt had other ideas.  
But at least he knew he was going to make lemon cake. He had that edge on Ygritte who was staring at her basket like it had been left there by a UFO. Jon set off toward the pantry to get his ingredients, and this time he noticed Ygritte sticking her foot out to trip him before he fell. He nonchalantly shoved her with his shoulder, causing her to knock her basket off the table.  
Ygritte turned around to glare at him, and before he could make it all the way to the pantry, the plastic carton of lemon peel hit him square in the back of the head, the lemon peels scattering on the floor.  
“Uh oh,” He heard Renly Baratheon laughing nervously at the cameras, trying to diffuse the tension. “Uh, looks like we’ve got some tension in the final round here. Remember chefs, only 10 minutes left!”  
Jon paid him no heed, because Ygritte had thrown her head back laughing, and if the only thought on his mind hadn’t been revenge, he would have stopped to stare at how her smile lit her face up and made her bright eyes sparkle.   
If the only thought on his mind hadn’t been revenge.   
He raced for the pantry and grabbed a handful of overripe tomatoes and spun around just in time to duck a spoonful of pesto Ygritte slung at him. He ran up to her and smashed a tomato right on top of his head.  
“Oh you are so dead, pretty boy.” She gasped and reached for the jar of pasta sauce and completely emptied its contents on the front of Jon’s shirt. He could hear Renly in the distance yelling at them to break it up and trying to stop the cameras from rolling but neither of them noticed. The two of them kept on utilizing the Chopped Kitchen’s pantry as the ammunition for a vicious, televised food fight.   
“Chef Ygritte and Chef Wild.” The two of them froze in place when Olenna Tyrell stood behind her chair at the judges’ table. “I can’t say I’m surprised, but I can say I’m disappointed. In my many years as a Chopped judge and as a sous chef, even as a grandmother, I’ve never seen behavior such as this.”  
Jon, unable to meet Olenna’s eyes, risked a glance at Ygritte, who was already looking at him and winked when their eyes met.   
“In response to this, you are both disqualified. I suppose we have no choice but to give the title to Chef Targaryen.”  
None of the judges even bothered saying thank you as they left, and Jon’s face was burning as he passed his cooking station to leave. He was so close, but at least this way he was avoiding doing anything too nice for Theon, even if Robb deserved it.  
As soon as the door closed behind them in the corridor, Ygritte cornered him against the door, a devious gleam in her eyes.  
“So,” She drawled. “Pretty boy, if that food fight didn’t ruin your appetite, how bout we go grab some dinner together?”

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, feel free to comment :) and hit me up on tumblr @jons


End file.
